A sign

I have a bunch of things I want to post about, but I'm tired and my computer is being very slow, though the antivirus/spyware scan I just ran came up clean.

I have a decent list for "How to Fight like Karl Rove, Part 2" (see here for the original.) I had a quote relevant to the ongoing worldwide financial collapse from V for Vendetta - the book, not the movie - but it would have to be taken completely out of context to make it work.* Which reminds me of a quote from another Alan Moore work that I really want to use as a post title sometime soon. And then there's that video about the other upcoming crisis, the one that will hit a few weeks after a new President is sworn in...

One thing I will post about. A few weeks ago I mentioned that the local bishop had renamed the "Bishop's Annual Appeal" to "Our Grateful Faith Annual Appeal," probably because the bishop has made many of the people of the Diocese of Scranton hate and resent him through his union-busting, school-closing, parish-closing, parishioner-ignoring, mafia-hugging, pedophile-shielding, and now vote-manipulating ways, so putting his name on the fund drive would not be a way to guarantee success.

"Our Grateful Faith" has been announced at all the Masses for a while now, and people know about it, that ever-dwindling fraction of Catholics who actually attend Mass on Sundays at least. For those who don't attend Mass - well, what are the odds they're going to donate, anyway?

So as I was driving to work the other day and approached the point where I-84/380/Rt. 6 splits from I-81, I got to wondering who the big expensive ad for "Our Grateful Faith" on the big giant electronic billboard over the highway was targeted towards? And how much it cost? And where that money was coming from? Because, obviously, the people most likely to donate had already been reached through the weekly Mass. I wonder if there is any way of measuring the return on investment for this ad?

Oh, well. At least the people who own the billboard got a nice big fat check, most likely made from the meager contributions of the people of the Diocese of Scranton to last year's Annual Appeal.



*Unless anyone believes that this crisis is actually the result of actions taken by a masked anarchist trying to save the world from itself.